Doing More with Less

A new detailed analysis has been published on the intermittency of renewables, "Household Solar Photovoltaics: Supplier of Marginal Abatement, or Primary Source of Low-Emission Power?"

Here are some observations about this article:

Any future scenario involving the continuing indulgence or
coddling of fossil fuel interests is delusional. Catastrophic climate change is
at the door. Even if our only issue were peak oil, it is already too
late for a smooth "transition" or "energy conservation." We are in a
state of emergency and it is time to stop kidding ourselves about our
plight, especially within the well-informed but small peak oil / EROI /
climate change / renewables community. More than ever, the world needs
clear, honest, deep understanding. The politicians and the business
community will catch on only when we get real ourselves and "tell it
like it is."

Given the high risk of social disruption due to climate change,
the only rational future for nuclear power (including nuclear weaponry)
is rapid decommissioning and secure sequestration. The last thing
humanity needs is coastal nuclear power plants flooded by sea level
rise and on-river nuclear power plants running out of cooling water
while marauders are out on the front lawns of the nuclear industry
custodians. Others may be in denial about this risk, but we need not
indulge their fantasies of a nuclear resurgence.

That leaves us with only one sane course of action: demand
destruction combined with renewables. Any challenges to high EROI
renewables carry the responsibility to find high
EROI solutions. If batteries don't cut the mustard, then forget
batteries. If the main challenge is intermittency, then it is time for
us to set the bar higher and put qualified intermittency engineers to
work. Many serious developers are working on low cost, high capacity, high
round-trip efficiency storage. And they aren't wasting
their time on batteries. If trees can survive the night (and
winter even in Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia), then so can
humans.

By the way, a good peer reviewed scientific report on the
costs and impacts of intermittency can be obtained from the UKERC: http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/Intermittency
It explains the important concept of "root mean square error" and
debunks a lot of the myths about intermittent generation.

Likewise, if we need a smarter grid to make renewables work,
then we need to put more smart people to work, and pronto. One can identify the challenge and the inadequacy of efforts to
date. Fine. Then what happens? (Robert Heinlein's admonition comes to
mind: "Always listen to experts. They will tell you what can't be done
and why. Then do it.")

Residential rooftop solar has a place but it carries the
challenges of high installation cost, poor orientation/shading, roof
penetrations, etc. These issues stand in the way of large scale high
EROI deployment.

Nor does the need for scale necessarily imply huge remote solar
farms out in the deserts. That's appropriate if we are up to something
out there in the first place, but extensive transmission and
environmental costs can be mitigated by integrating most renewables
into the urban fabric.

Charlie Hall's claim that society's EROI has to be on the order of
magnitude of 10 is similarly built upon the premise of many steps
between, e.g., the well and the wheel. No wonder he's right. We fly
rednecks from Houston to extract oil offshore in Angola, ship it to
refineries in Rotterdam, conjure magic potions and send it off to who
knows where by truck no less, and then run it through a 15% efficient
engine pushing around mostly metal. What a waste! By uniting generation
and application (source and sink) within a single physical structure,
much of that inefficiency can be readily eliminated and the minimum
EROI can get back down to a reasonable number.

There is no significant future for electric cars (and thus
V2G). Using the Biblical cliche, it doesn't make sense to put new wine
in old wine skins. In the context of peak oil, humanity is poised to
eliminate the treacherous bad engineering (misnamed "auto"-mobile /
"free"-way) that willy-nilly juxtaposes children, pedestrians and
bicyclists (not to mention pets, squirrels and deer) against heavy fast-moving machines on the same terrestrial
plane. With grade-separated Solar Skyways, for example, we
can reclaim the streets for people-not-machines and meet our energy
needs as well. In the process, with a 10X improved solution, we can
drastically cut the source-to-sink steps which whittle away at full EROI / LCA / efficiency considerations.

For any new scientific inquiry, we must question the
assumptions which underpin the conclusions reached. If one picks a
marginal set of underlying premises, one will get marginal results.

And though one's conclusions may be valid within the present political
framework and technology mindset, the science behind EROI and LCA
relate first and foremost to physics, not BAU economics or political
intransigence. As long as we are considering such scenarios as high
residential rooftop solar deployment, it makes sense to also put forth
bold scenarios with sound physics, irrespective of the political /
industrial challenges we face. In the emerging milieu of severe natural
consequences, bold is where the opportunities can be found.

As Washington continues to deliberate over the fiscal cliff and the much-hyped notion that the US government is sufficiently functional to avert fiscal disaster, America's attention is being diverted from a much more profound cliff-hanger looming on the horizon.

The USA, Saudi Arabia and Russia are competing to see which country can "produce" the most oil. That translates into racing to see which country will reach the bottom of the barrel first. In their frantic race to the bottom, these countries are creating havoc on the ground -- destroying aquifers, watersheds, productive land, forests -- and on the high seas -- even to the point of attempting to drill in the Arctic Ocean where extreme conditions will thwart human arrogance.

Reports of production increases can be seen as just more warnings that the race to the finish is accelerating. Sadly those fossil fuelish players have little to show for a Plan B.

Reports of profits can be seen as thieves bragging about who got away with the biggest heist. Oil only costs what it takes to steal it from our children's children's children. The notion that "they will come up with something to replace oil" is thoughtless and irresponsible. Tell those guys to be careful: they might stub their toes trying to kick the can down the road that far. The physical cliff may be closer than they think.

In the decades to come, the fiscal cliff of December 31, 2012 will be remembered as a picnic when it is contrasted to the fall from glory which these great nations will experience as they slide down the physical cliff of rapidly depleting oil / gas / coal.

The debate about SuperStorm Sandy is heating up, whether the whole planet is or not. Here's what some have to say:

There is no doubt that warming is occurring but I am unclear that
we understand that there is any clear correlation between warming and a
bad storm although I understand the arguments for it. I just don't
think it is scientific.

I hear a hard edge in those who stridently assure us that big storms like Sandy are related to climate change.

I hear that too. I suspect fear enters into the picture for a lot
of thoughtful people who have the skills and sufficient access to
information resources to observe, think and act. Frankly, anyone who is not freaking out is just not paying attention. It's
not just happening in New Jersey and New York. My family and friends in
Sweden are in the most affected northern climate zone and they are experiencing dramatic
weather changes first hand. As we rode through the Cordillera Blanca
[White Range], my friends in Peru pointed out the now brown slopes.
Glacier National Park had over 100 glaciers, now less than 30, and is
predicted to be glacier free within 10 years. You can argue it's because of cattle in feed lots instead of
cars, or chopping down the Amazon instead of burning black stones, but
anyone who attributes these drastic changes to anything but human
activity is delusional. We have adequate science to prove that the
climate is way out of whack; how much is getting to be a detail.

I'm not suggesting people become apoplectic, but it is appropriate that
we recognize the potentially devastating consequences and weigh our
responses accordingly. There are those
who have the skills and resources to sound the alarm about climate
change. And logically, just as we don't have all the answers about peak
oil (etc.), they don't have all the answers about climate change. That's
a given.

If you believe it, fine. But acknowledge that is a belief and not a fact.

I don't base my actions on fairy tales. I operate by certain principles to avoid such traps:

I study issues carefully and read scientific articles, and employ
journalism primarily to lead me to valid sources, not to jump to
conclusions. I look beyond the sources to the support they receive, and
apply Jim Hansen's adage: "It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on him not understanding it."

I devoted years of my youth to learning the analytic tools I would need to discern fact from fiction. As Winston Churchill allegedly put it, "Not everyone is entitled to an
opinion; in order to have an opinion, you have to know something."

I apply those tools as things come up; I do the math. I have a well-honed "crap detector" and it comes in mighty handy: I encounter B.S. just about every day.

And when in doubt, I apply the precautionary principle. I didn't
make this up. It is statutory in the European Union.

There are ways to get to the heart of the matter.

you may be right but you don't know.

If we are in doubt about climate change, then under the precautionary
principle, it is our responsibility to err on the side of caution, in
this case to jettison our addition to burning stones at all costs, just
in case the IPCC is right. If they are wrong, no harm can come of it. In
fact, the consequence will be on the upside: a little more oil will be
spared for our children. It is our moral obligation to do so anyway. If
in the process we mitigate climate change, even a little, so much the
better. They will thank us for holding to our principles in the face of
ridicule or worse.

And of course there's the argument that things are going to get very
much worse as humanity crashes into peak oil, even if the climate tames
down completely. There will be die off (thank you, Jay Hanson). There
will be climate refugees. Do we therefore turn cynical? Do we sit on our
hands?

My hat is off to those who are designing and building artifacts for a world
beyond oil. They may be using oil / gas / coal to do so; they need not be apologetic about that. There is so much to do that they can go where they are welcomed, not where they face cynicism or worse. With success, there will be
little post-carbon pockets of sanity, which with a little luck will
propagate. No, they won't reach everywhere before things go really bad.
It's like building life boats. Better than going down with the ship of
fools on fuels.

Germany is dumping electricity on its unwilling neighbors and by wintertime the feud should come to a head.

Central and Eastern European countries are moving to disconnect their
power lines from Germany’s during the windiest days. That’s when they
get flooded with energy, echoing struggles seen from China to Texas over
accommodating the world’s 200,000 windmills.

Renewable energy around the world is causing problems because unlike oil
it can’t be stored, so when generated it must be consumed or risk
causing a grid collapse. At times, the glut can be so great that
utilities pay consumers to take the power and get rid of it.

Oh that we might have Germany's problem :: too much electricity.

An acquaintance of mine has been developing an electricity storage
technology which can scale and has a low environmental footprint. I
called him last month to find out how things are going.

I had thought he was going to tell me about progress on a
megawatt-hour prototype. No, he's talking to, you guessed it, the
Germans, and they're asking him to design for them a Gigawatt-hour
system. Meanwhile, his American prospects haven't materialized.

The Germans will meet the renewable energy challenge. They will be
selling American storage technology to electricity grid operators around
the world. (Renewables aren't the only context for grid-scale
storage.)

Meanwhile the dominant energy storage technology comes straight from the stone age: digging up
black rocks and burning them. But how long will this last? Hmmm...

Chinese saying: There are two kinds of businessman, good and bad. Good businessman selling; bad businessman buying.

The Chinese learned to sell solar technology to the Germans. So perhaps they could learn another lesson from the Germans: Stop buying black rocks from third world countries like the USA, Indonesia and Australia, and start selling
a total renewable energy package, complete with grid-scale storage.
Third world Americans will be good customers. They are whining:
"renewable energy around the world is causing problems because unlike
oil
it can’t be stored..." so they won't be coming up with products anytime soon.

Unlike oil, the wind is free... and the winds will blow long after the oil is gone.
It used to be "Buy American." Now it's "Buy America." The place is
[energetically] bankrupt and up for sale to the highest bidder.

How do we communicate the
message of peak oil to the curious, the uninformed, the skeptic?

Well, that depends upon the message. Is ours a message of fear? Is
it fantasy? Is it a message of hope? Is it a call to action?

Here's an option to consider: Lamentations begone!

Way back then

My seventh grade teacher would habitually give us her backhanded
praise, "Light dawns upon darkness," as we went through our lessons.
In Sunday School I had learned the difference between truth and lies
(not to be confused with fact and fiction).

I learned another important lesson in the Boy Scouts. We were taught
to leave the campground better than we found it. It meant a little
extra work to pick up after ourselves ... and the unconscious souls
who had been there before us, leaving a big mess in their wake.

Fast forward...

Fast forward a half century. Without a doubt I now live in a world
that is a lot more complex than the campgrounds of my youth. Leaving
a better world for the next batch of campers isn't quite as easy as
it once seemed. My Scoutmaster would be arrested today if he were
driving to Yosemite with 30 kids in the back of that stake-side
truck. Nor had I noticed at the time that the truck's exhaust was
causing the climate to change, nor that the global fuel tank gauge
was dropping fast.
Where do we stand now?

So here I sit today, hanging out with a bunch of savvy folks,
imagining a world beyond oil. It's a little scary at times.

Some of the savvy folks are imagining a dystopia. It's hard to fault
them for that. All you have to do is look out your window at the
world, and you will readily see lots of things falling right apart.
Some places are flooding worse than ever; other places are burning,
with record highs. Low down depression lurks behind many a
paycheck... and it attacks mercilessly where once there was plenty.

More than a million people die in traffic accidents every year; ten
million and more are seriously injured. Turf wars (over oil and
minerals for cars) add to the numbers and the suffering. In simple
terms, the so-called autonomous vehicle ("automobile") has
degenerated into a very bad design. Clearly Karl Benz and Henry Ford
had the best of intentions, and their inventions served humanity
well for a century. But just as the car rolled the horse off the
streets a century ago, so must the car be driven out of town in this
new century... or pushed all the way to the junk yard when it runs
out of fuel. Keeping the same form (an artifact of the oil age)
while switching from fuel to electricity might be likened to
changing the horse's feed from hay to kerosene so it might run
faster. What's wrong with this picture?!

Transferring the American dream to China and Indian is about to turn
into a nightmare as both countries compete to see which can gobble
up, one-time-only, more natural resources than the other. And they
think it's only fair for us to sit on the sidelines to watch them go
at it. We have our troubles; these countries will be unfettered to
mimic us and chase after their own troubles.

Archeologists have uncovered enough of the past to realize that
humans evolved to form a primitive society known as the Stone Age.
That hasn't changed very much, realistically. Future archeologists
no doubt will call ours the Burn Stone Age.

This race to the bottom is getting pretty insane. Is there any way
out?

A Better World

At a recent talk
in San Francisco, John Reed, Chairman of the MIT Corporation,
former Chair of CitiGroup and the New York Stock Exchange, was
asked, "There are a number of young alumni here ... [asking] ... how
can they be successful in their careers?"

John Reed replied, "I always could dream. I had a sense of where we
wanted to go. And I greatly believed that if you can
interpolate it is much better than extrapolating.

"Most managers sorta say, 'Where are we today?' Then they sort of
extrapolate, and say, 'We could be a little more efficient; we could
gain a little market share; we could do a little this; we could do a
little that.' And they spend their life trying to extrapolate from
some core to, you know, being somewhat better.

"... I think you gotta have a vision of where you'd like to be and
then you've gotta say, 'I'm gonna use my efforts to get from here to
there.'

And I must say it served me well in my business career. I think it
served the institutions I was working with well and if I had any
recommendations for a younger person, it would be, "Dream enough, be
realistic, figure out what it is you would love to be, and then
figure out how you're gonna get there. Don't just try..."

To leave a brighter world for our descendants, we must begin
envisioning a better way to live. We can't dwell incessantly on what
a miserable mess we are leaving for them. That's self-indulgence, at
a time when we need all hands on deck. A persistent example is to
see so many wringing their hands about the intermittency of
renewables. This is a bit like complaining that there weren't enough
oars on the Titanic's lifeboats.

Since it will be a world without oil (coal, gas), we must envision
that: a world beyond oil (coal, gas). What might that world look
like? As John Reed said, let's create a vision of where we'd like to
be and then let's interpolate -- figure out how to get there.
Dwelling on the past and extending that model into the future
(extrapolating) isn't going to get us very far. We might consider
our accomplishments or lack thereof in light of our core message.

At the dawn of the World Wide Web in 1994, I staked a claim to my
vision of a better world -- www.Ecotopia.com -- building upon Ernest
Callenbach's vision of an ecologically sound utopia. Once we abandon
the unwieldy and outmoded artifacts of the fossil fuel era, I
envision a world that is comfortably powered by solar energy. I
envision a world where expectations have changed such that we have
learned to do more with less in order to meet the needs of all
people, accepting the challenge to find ways to stretch natural
resources ten-fold, and to stop burning rocks like tenants burning
the landlord's picket fence to stay warm through the cold winter.
Let the sun shine in!!

If we as peak oil aware folks want to gain market share, we will envision a
better future.

[And I reiterate my challenge. I'm all ears to hear about any
alternative to my vision which is constructive, plausible and
durable. No "over unity" schemes in defiance of the Second Law. No
fair kicking the can down the road. Belly to the bar.]

A vision without a task is a dream; a
task without a vision is drudgery; a vision with a task is the
hope of the world. (Inscribed on the wall of a
church in Sussex, England,
circa 1730, posted at
http://www.ecotopia.com/ecosystems/mission.htm )

Unprecedented economic expansion over the past century has been powered
by abundant and relatively inexpensive oil and other fossil fuels. How
would the U.S. and global economy respond to an oil supply crisis and
the prospect of diminishing oil supplies? What would economic “growth”
and “development” look like in a future with less oil?

I think this
might be the time for me to highlight the theme of equity (in particular, international- and inter-generational equity).

That statement, "... in a future with less oil," is hinting in the direction of "oil continues to be treated as a fuel."
Hmmm. If there is no awareness of the value of oil, not for burning up
one-time-only, but as a substance for long term use by our progeny, what
right do we have to tie up people's time talking about an economy? What is an economy without leaving behind some resources for a next generation to take over?

Where do we weave this fundamental
into the peak oil story? I for one am coming to loath the continuing using the
term "fossil fuels." We are burning stones to get around?! How do you explain that to your grandchildren? We are so shortsighted to consume these resources that belong to their future.

I'm probably going to drive to town soon, and jump in an airplane before the year is up. Shame on me. The point though is
to put our heads together, to find common ground, so that
collectively, we can put a new spin on oil, to begin to treat it as a valuable
resource, too precious to burn. Might that perspective serve well to
transform our efforts into a more noble cause?

Today we look
back in disgust at whaling for lamp oil. How primitive to kill those magnificent sentient leviathans just to light up a room. What will the beyond-oil people of the future think of us?!

At this critical juncture in history, many factors must be considered in developing new transportation infrastructure. Going up blind alleys will be very costly; every day matters in the oil depletion count-down. The electric passenger car is one of those blind alleys, for many reasons. It's time to get a 21st century transportation system off the ground. Consider this thought experiment, Solar Skyways:

Cost of fleet maintenance: To maintain the global fleet of nearly 1 b vehicles including trucks, fuel at $5/gallon ($210/barrel, net after refining), wild guesstimate of 10,000 miles/year/vehicle [USA is 12,000] at 25 mpg, that's 10 T VMT (vehicle miles traveled; USA has 3 T VMT) = $2 T/year. Or, 30 B barrels at $100 * 60% [IEA] used for transport = $2 T. So, ignoring all other private vehicle maintenance costs, by eliminating fuel altogether for ground vehicles we have a budget of arguably $2T/year to offset new capital costs. Can we do better than that? If we were to transition to renewables in 10 years, we could invest $2T * 10 = $20 T in renewables infrastructure. After that, energy costs (maintaining solar systems) would be a tiny fraction of what it is today. No wars over oil, for one thing.

How much will Solar cost? Solar PV 4 meters wide yields 1 megawatt per mile. Placed over major roads (say 4 million miles worldwide, roughly 20-30%), we achieve 4 TW electric. Can we build 4 TW of solar for under $20 T? Prices are now <$3/watt installed at MW scale. That leaves money on the table to cover much of the cost of the Skyways' construction too.

How many vehicle-miles will solar deliver? Average worldwide solar capacity factor is 5 kWh/kW/day, so 4 TW * 5 * 365 = 7,000 TWh. Suspended robotic electric vehicles weighing 1/4 tonne will use < 200 Wh/mi, so we can achieve 7,000 T / 200 = 35 T VMT. (Recall USA has 3 T VMT; global is on the order of 10 T VMT. Projected global travel in 2050 is less than 35 T VMT.) It appears that we will have surplus electricity by 2X to share with the folks living along the street. Or we can have the solar panels 2 meters wide.

Load-matching: EVs charged at night for use in the daytime is a grotesque mismatch between source and sink (engineer-speak, or "supply and demand" to the economists) which would require mountains of batteries (and mountains conquered by huge mining trucks). Solar energy, on the other hand, occurs at the same time people do most of their traveling.
Even in winter with less sun, people travel less anyway.

Won't we still need storage? Yes. Using the grid for storage will be far less costly than batteries. And if deep storage isn't ready for prime time yet, in the meantime maybe you get charged more for travel at night or on cloudy days in the wintertime. Beats having somebody blow up the Middle East in a huff!

Single use vs multiple use: If "Detroit" manufactures a car for private use, the cost is $20,000 per driver / 2 passengers per vehicle = $10,000/pax. If we manufacture an ultralight vehicle at $10,000 that is used in public infrastructure 10X per day, 2 pax, that cost will be $500/pax. If you and I go into competition with "Detroit" in these challenging economic times, who will win more customers?

Safety: The automobile has been considered an improvement on the quality of life. Tell that to the families and friends of the million people who die in traffic accidents every year. What about the tens of millions seriously injured? By getting urban vehicles off the ground, the land is freed for pedestrians and bicyclists who no longer have to fear for their lives.

Performance: When shared by five modes (trolleys, buses, cars, bikes, pedestrians) the existing public transportation infrastructure (a.k.a. streets) cannot perform well for any one mode. Cars get congested, trolleys slow to a crawl to avoid running over pedestrians, bicyclists and pedestrians meet walls of traffic. Put all vehicles above the human realm (gravity matters, after all) and everybody gets where they want to go painlessly and rapidly.

Germany’s solar power plants produced a record 22 gigawatts of energy on Friday, equivalent to the output of 20 nuclear plants. The country is already a world-leader in solar power and hopes to be free of nuclear energy by 2022.

The director of the Institute of the Renewable Energy Industry (IWR) in Muenster, northeast Germany, said the solar power delivered to the national grid on Saturday met 50 per cent of the nation’s energy quota.

I am surprised that so little attention has been given to Russia, the progenitor of Germany's renewable energy policy.

I hired a German engineering intern in the summer of 1996. He had grown up in East Germany, and in his early teens the Berlin Wall fell. He was old enough at the time to have a very clear impression of Soviet incompetence and malevolence.

To this day Europe's largest imports of fossil fuels come from Russia. So it was no surprise to me that the German Bundestag determined to take their energy policy into their own hands over 10 years ago. You think the sun and the wind are capricious? What if a certain Mr. Putin gets up on the wrong side of bed tomorrow morning?

We are at a turning point. Thanks to the intelligence and courage of King Hubbert, Dennis Meadows, Colin Campbell, Jean Laherrere and others, humanity now understands that fossil fuels and nuclear power are finite. Every penny spent on expanding their use is plainly "good money after bad." Hunting down new "sources" of oil in the arctic or yellowcake in the outback is just that: hunting and gathering in the age of agriculture.

Once again humanity must learn to harvest energy rather than exhaust a patch of land and then move on.

So you say solar power (sun/wind/hydro/...) is intermittent. No argument. There are two ways to deal with that: wring your hands or roll up your sleeves.

Thankfully the Germans have set an example for the rest of us by rolling up their sleeves.

"... fossil fuels are qualitatively superior on the matrix categories..."

It all depends on what qualities one cherishes. I cherish clean, quiet, powerful. My matrix I suppose would differ from the Oil Drum author's. In fact, I set forth such a matrix years ago: Scoreboard.

One day, the notion of burning fuels to move things will seem as primitive as cooking a meal in Manhattan at a campfire on the floor in the kitchen. Yes, fossil fuels are compact, but not as compact as electricity delivered by wire. Fuels are explosive too, whether fossil or bio, and it is absurd to have these dangerous substances held in conveyances being hurdled along at highway speed. Now please don't be confused; I'm not advocating EVs with batteries – yet another primitive notion for the urban landscape.

Teams around the world are designing transportation systems based on solar energy, with PV panels directly overhead to meet 100% of the systems' energy demand (on average, net-metered). Teams are designing these systems to place small, on-demand vehicles above the street, where they won't run into people, pets or deer. This is not a pipe dream.

"... and that transportation without fossil fuels will be hard..."

Maybe that's true in the USA, but not in Europe. Really, how hard can it get?! When was the last time you looked at a freeway cloverleaf? That's what's hard: accommodating a free-wheelin' half-drunk cowboy in a 3-ton behemoth with a wide margin for error – 12' per lane?! – plus a shoulder or barricade. Tons of steel and concrete can be eliminated by greatly streamlining the urban transit system using this emerging technology, with 200 kg podcars on switched computerized networks above the streets. One day we will be jackhammering the streets to turn them into parks where kids can play again, in their village, without getting run over by the above-mentioned cowboy or a choo-choo train cleaving the community in half.

We can do better. Come on, it's time to roll up our sleeves and stop kicking the can down the road for our children's children to figure out what to do. It is obvious: the age of fossil fuels is moribund, and it's time we stopped killing over a million people a year (globally in traffic) with a transport system design that's completely out of step with peak oil realities – and the reality of 21st century technology that is 10X better in so many dimensions: 10X less weight, 10X less energy, 10X greater safety.

Reducing global CO2 emissions could soon become a lot easier. Our fossil fuel supplies are in rapid decline, and since humanity is doing so little to address this decline, in more graphic terms, we might call this "sticking our heads in the tar sand."

As if we have a choice! Reducing carbon emissions 80% is a given if total energy consumption
worldwide drops 80% due simply to depletion (and not just in the USA; we’re all in this together).
With aggregate oil, gas and coal depletion from existing fields already
reaching 5% or more per year, this isn’t a flippant scenario. Resource depletion has hardly been mentioned in the climate activist community, but depletion is as real as climate change.

Market penetration of renewables in 2050 may well be close to 100%. But that may not be such a happy picture, as 100% of then could be more like the 20% of now.

In 2050 our descendants are likely to be using a lot less energy,
period. Will they be happy about that? Not necessarily. Between now and
then, fossil water aquifers will also be severely depleted; exhausted fuel
supplies will not likely be on hand to pump these exhausted water sources from the
deep. Since producing meat is so much more energy intensive than vegetables, it may come down to a choice between meat for the few or veggies
for the many. Think about it.

I fret about humanity's ability and desire to find alternatives to
fossil fuels while there's still enough fuel left to build a robust
civilization equipped to survive beyond the age of oil. It won't happen if
we continue to invest in fossil-fuel-dependent infrastructure, hoping that a long term solution will magically land in our children's laps in 2050.

Humanity has been kicking the can down the road for decades, in the
USA since Carter. If we want our children and their children in turn to thrive, we in
our time must
begin figuring out ways to do a lot more with a lot less. I call that notion 10X.
We are seeing solutions that use 10X less energy for specific energy
services (light, mobility, …). These will actually bring us a better
quality of life … if, and that’s a
big if, we actually get busy to transform our society from oil to ingenuity.

Of course, it is just the opposite for energy-empoverished countries
like Nigeria (with 12 watts average electric power per capita) or Afghanistan (with 1 watt per capita).
These impoverished countries will have a better quality of life when energy use is 10Xgreater than it is today. Where energy use now is 100X to 1,000X less than in the OECD countries, an increase in supply of 10X would greatly help to create a higher quality of life.